Huntsman's Out: Where Do His Supporters Go Now?

South Carolina's last attorney general, Henry McMaster, spent Sunday praying with candidate Jon Huntsman at a church in Charleston, but he didn't reach the same conclusion as the now departed presidential candidate—at least not yet.

"I haven't approached that question," McMaster said in a slow, Southern drawl on Monday about whether he might endorse, moments before Huntsman dropped out of the race. But McMaster added that "Jon Huntsman has a lot of support in South Carolina and I'm confident that his supporters as well as supporters of other candidates will be very interested in what he has to say."

Huntsman, who captured the White House and media's attention in the early stages of the race but never seemed to catch on with an angry Republican base, argued in his speech Monday that "for our nation to move forward together with new leadership and unity, the Republican Party must first unite," and bemoaned the "current toxic form of our political discourse," in the race, which had "degenerated into an onslaught of negative attacks not worthy of the American people and not worthy of this critical time."

Huntsman's final bow frees up some of his endorsers—like current Attorney General Alan Wilson (son of Rep. Joe Wilson of "You lie!" fame) and former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge—to throw their weight behind another candidate, one they believe actually has a chance of winning. The question is whether they'd want to. In South Carolina, some of the most hardcore conservative activists are ready to lash out at anyone who backs Romney. But at this point Romney appears to be the only person well-suited both in temperament and plausibility in the general election to receive Huntsman's supporters.

"Jon refused to engage in the antics that attract attention. By his nature he will not engage in these things. He wouldn't go to the Trump debate, wouldn't sign pledges that people forget about, and wouldn't set his hair on fire," McMaster sighed, acknowledging that this was probably the former Utah governor's undoing. "He wouldn't engage in name-calling towards the president or step into hatred of the president that people seem willing to foment. His unwillingness to do that is a sign of a good man, but in a campaign that doesn't call attention to itself in that way, sometimes the attention goes elsewhere."